Posts Tagged ‘internet’

Australia is the best country to do ­business over the internet, the e-Trade Readiness Index shows.

The index, compiled by eBay and The Economist intelligence unit, ranks Group of 20 countries’ internet-enabled trade. Because the European Union is treated as a separate entity, 19 countries are ranked in this particular index and Australia has the highest e-trade ranking out of those 19.

Rounding out the top five are the United States, South Korea, Britain and Japan respectively. The lowest ranked is Argentina.

Australia topped the list because of:

affordable internet access,

high smartphone penetration,

a well- ­developed regulatory framework and

high e-payments adoption.

The index comprises more than 40 indicators across five categories:

investment climate,

internet environment,

international trading environment,

regulatory and legal framework, and

the environment for e-payments.

The categories are weighted based on The Economist intelligence unit’s assumptions of their importance in cross-border trade using the internet.

However, the report also says that customs and regulation restrictions may hinder the growth of small and ­medium-sized businesses.

Garnering 30 million site visits and over 250 million page views since its launch in 2008 by Justin Cameron and Lex Pederson, SurfStitch, an online retailer that specialises in surf gear that is headquartered on the Gold Coast, is one of Australia’s most highly trafficked eCommerce sites and has pulled in $30 million in revenue for the company.

As Australia continues to roll out its $38 billion National Broadband Network, which will bring high-speed internet to almost all the 23 million population of the country, some government higher ups are predicting a boom in online and high tech businesses.

“As the rollout of the NBN continues, the capacity for start-up companies, particularly in the tech and digital sectors, to create game-changing businesses and applications is unprecedented,” said Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, recently.

Currently, online and high-tech start-ups only account for about 0.1% of GDP and 9,500 jobs. But the sector is growing rapidly and a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) suggests it could account for 4% of GDP and 540,000 jobs by 2033.

The rise of young startups has seen them start to populate the ranks of the Business Review Weekly Young Rich List, which ranks the wealthiest people in the country under 41.

Orders made over the internet, including both within Australia and from overseas, reaped more than $237 billion in revenues in the 2011-12 financial year over the year before, according to the IT Use and Innovation in Australian Business report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this week.

Information media and telecommunications businesses received the most online orders in 2011-12, followed by wholesale trade manufacturing whilst agriculture, forestry and fishing had the lowest proportion of online orders.

The internet has allowed makers and suppliers of ‘legal highs’ which may contain illicit substances, to sell their goods directly to the public online.

Sydney Morning Herald today reports that Australian Customs faces new problems with emerging technology, as it is difficult to monitor, and exposes a potentially wider section of the public to drugs. Some of the pills are simply caffeine-based, whereas others contain ingredients such as ephedrine, one of the precursors of methamphetamine. They are sent through the post and Customs said “many packages are opened and assessed each day”, but not every package can be opened.

Customs does not have the legal authority to shut down online sites selling the drugs but has forced some of the websites to include import restrictions warnings.